"Resting! I've been frightfully ill."
"I'm sorry, my dear. I'll come in again on my way out."
"Clay!"
He turned in the doorway.
"Is it all gone? Everything?"
"Practically. Yes."
"But you were insured?"
"I'll tell you about that later. I haven't given it much thought yet. I
don't know just how we stand."
"I shall never let Graham go back to it again. I warn you. I've been
lying here for hours, thinking that it might have happened as easily as
not while he was there."
He hardly listened. He had just remembered Anna.
"I left a girl here last night, Natalie," he said. "Do you happen to
know what became of her?"
Natalie stirred on her pillows.
"I should think I do. She fainted, or pretended to faint. The servants
looked after her."
"Has she gone?"
"I hope so. It is almost noon. Oh, by the way," she called, as he moved
off, "there is a message for you. A woman named Gould, from the Central
Hospital. She wants to see you at once. They have kept the telephone
ringing all the morning."
Clare Gould! That was odd. He had seen her taken out, a bruised and
moaning creature, her masses of fair hair over her shoulders, her eyes
shut. The surgeons had said she was not badly hurt. She might be worse
than they thought. The mention of her name brought Audrey before him. He
hoped, wherever she was, she would know that he was all right.
As soon as he had changed he called the hospital. The message came back
promptly and clearly.
"We have a woman named Gould here. She is not badly hurt, but she is
hysterical. She wants to see you, but if you can't come at once I am to
give you a message. Wait a moment. She has written it, but it's hardly
legible."
Clayton waited.
"It's about somebody you know, who had gone on night turn recently at
your plant. I can't read the name. It looks like Ballantine."
"It isn't Valentine, is it?"
"Perhaps it is. It's just a scrawl. But the first name is clear
enough--Audrey."
Afterward he did not remember hanging up the receiver, or getting out of
the house. He seemed to come to himself somewhat at the hospital, and
at the door to Clare's ward his brain suddenly cleared. He did not need
Clare's story. It seemed that he knew it all, had known it long ages
before. Her very words sounded like infinite repetitions of something he
had heard, over and over.